Anyway to Extend the 'Magic Circle' on PC?

[BulletBill]

If you edit a map, and all players and the server use this version of the map then it won't mess up multiplayer. As for changing files in the games data folder. I have done this for many things including vehicles and have had no problems playing multiplayer. I cant rule out that some things only I see changes in or differences in from a client side.

You can alter certain aspects of your base game without it breaking MP, for example texture changes. However those will only be visible to yourself, no one else.
Coding changes if saved off can stop MP from working.


With regards the "circle"....

This is something I've spent hundreds of hours trying to find the best way to improve it.

Basically it is a compromise, there is no way the game engine can render insane amounts of individual foliage plants to a high clip (view) distance.
So instead at set a point the detail foliageLayers transition to a distance texture which changes the terrain colour.

Increasing the clip distance is not ideal as you've already found out it just kills FPS.

Fs19 did improve this by introducing foliage LODs layers. Meaning you can extend it further out with less negative effect on fps.

There is no way to stop the transition as it needs to be there for us to be able to run the game higher than 5 fps.

What helps is to make that transition as seamless a possible.

For some reason GIANTS never seem to work that hard to make the final LOD foliage stage match the distance texture or vice versa.

By altering the distance texture colour, brightness etc you can get it a lot closer than standard.

This then makes the transition from detail to distance much less noticeable.

It's not perfect and the further out or higher your camera is the more you will still notice it the transition.

Another point here is more accurate crop foliageLayers. GIANTS seem to struggle to create realistic crop textures, that match the RL versions.
Using custom textures or making my own I've found makes it easier to make that detail to distance transition better.

Hope this helps. Any other questions feel free to ask. Foliage detail and textures is something I am always looking for ways to improve.

[norfolk farmer]

Another point here is more accurate crop foliageLayers. GIANTS seem to struggle to create realistic crop textures, that match the RL versions.
Using custom textures or making my own I've found makes it easier to make that detail to distance transition better.

The crop textures took a backwards step in 19 they just look so thin, I've been spending more time back on 17 and you really notice how much better the crops look (along with many other things )

[cwattyeso]

You can alter certain aspects of your base game without it breaking MP, for example texture changes. However those will only be visible to yourself, no one else.
Coding changes if saved off can stop MP from working.

I've never changed textures or anything in the i3ds, all my data file edits have been strictly limited to xmls, so for vehicles changes for speed, power and capacity for example. I've not experienced any issues playing or connecting to multiplayer with my own edits in effect. I honestly think those text file warnings about breaking multiplayer if you edit the files, are just there to scare people.

[TurboJ]

Necroing a bit but I believe this thread might be useful for others too.

I'm asking for advice for optimizing the .xml graphics settings. I've recently come across some maps that are challenging my PC more than before. As per this thread, many of us are familiar with the 'magic circle' issue (read the thread for more info).

I didn't have any guidelines to go by so I just slapped some values on game.xml, adjusting the parameters suggested on this thread and some others too. But I don't really have the time required for testing this thing thoroughly.

My current settings as reported by the game log:

	Hardware Profile Level: Custom Very High View Distance Factor: 2.500000 Shadow Quality: 2.000000 Base-Size: 2048 Filter-Size: 16 Shadow Focus Box false Shader Quality: 3 Skip Mipmaps: 0 LOD Distance Factor: 2.500000 Terrain LOD Distance Factor: 2.000000 Terrain Normal Mapping: Yes Foliage View Distance Factor: 3.500000 Volume Mesh Tessellation Factor: 0.500000 Tyre Tracks Segments Factor: 4.000000 Max. Number of Shadow Lights: 5 Max. Number of Lights: 512 Max. Number of Lights Per Cluster: 32 MSAA: 2 Bloom Quality: 5 SSAO Quality: 15 DOF: Enabled Cloud Quality: 4 EnvMap Blending: Enabled

I would really appreciate if someone could steer me to the right direction. As discussed on this thread, the goal is to optimize the draw distance in respect to foliage, crop textures, ground textures and several lods - to mitigate as much of the 'magic circle' as possible.

Can someone tell me which of those draw distance modifiers has the greatest impact on game performance?

And most useful would be if someone was kind enough to share their own config so that I'd have a second baseline option to test with.

Thank you for any and all help!

[cwattyeso]

For me personally the setting I found to have the most effect on removing the 'Magic Circle' was the Foliage View Distance Factor: 3.500000, In my own settings I have this cranked up to 8, at the compromise that this setting is the one that effects the performance the most it seems. Depending on the Map I'm playing I can see my FPS falls to between 35-45. However with a relaxing, slow paced game like Farm Sim that's not something that bothers me, and I'd sooner have the nicer visuals.

The one other thing I noticed recently and now can never unsee it is the issue with the trees on maps. Has anyone else noticed how trees in the distance always look really dense and green with leaves and foliage, but then when you drive to them, they literally dissolve and wither before your eyes and becomes these very sparse looking sticks. I don't understand that at all, because surely from a performance point of view it'd make more sense to have the trees in the distance you can't really see properly be less dense, and have the high density better looking model come into effect when you are up close to them.

[BulletBill]

Can someone tell me which of those draw distance modifiers has the greatest impact on game performance?

The main things that impact FPS performance that can be adjusted in the graphics options are

1) Foliage Draw Distance, and Foliage Density

The higher the values these two have the worse your game plays.

2) Object Draw Distance,

These adjusts how far objects are clipped or not rendered visible.
A map object will be given a set value say 300 metres, if this setting is at 100% it will stop rendering at 300 metres.
If you set it to 150% the same object now won't clip until 450 metres. The more objects your game has to render all at once the worse FPS becomes.

Think of it as a circle around you the player, everything is being rendered constantly around you depending on its clip distance.

Most mod maps are not optimized in the slightest, even after all these years, which just accentuates the problem even more. Add to that high poly or badly modeled/textured vehicle and equipment mods your left running the game at FPS well below what it can run at.

The one other thing I noticed recently and now can never unsee it is the issue with the trees on maps. Has anyone else noticed how trees in the distance always look really dense and green with leaves and foliage, but then when you drive to them, they literally dissolve and wither before your eyes and becomes these very sparse looking sticks. I don't understand that at all, because surely from a performance point of view it'd make more sense to have the trees in the distance you can't really see properly be less dense, and have the high density better looking model come into effect when you are up close to them.

This is controlled by the trees LOD texture. GIANTS always have there tree LODs with no alphaBlending as consoles don't like that graphical feature or can't handle it.

If you adjust all the tree LODs on the map to have alphaBlend box ticked it makes the LODs much softer in the distance.

You can also save off the LOD texture and play about with the alpha value. (GIMP or Photoshop is needed for this, paint.net has no function for this)
The higher the value the more dense the LOD foliage will appear, the lower the value the more sparse it will look.